


Uncomfortably Numb

by Meilan_Firaga



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 14:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19086619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/pseuds/Meilan_Firaga
Summary: When he heads upstate for a visit, Tony isn't expecting to find things so out of whack. He offers a solution, but the results are entirely not what he or Wanda are expecting.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hecate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/gifts).



From the moment Tony Stark stepped into the massive facility he’d built in upstate New York he knew that something was wrong. There was a palpable air of dissatisfaction in the place. He paused just a few steps inside the entryway for a deep breath. The air tasted like sleepless nights and sorrow—which he was frankly miffed about given the state of the art ventilation system he’d designed. He knew that taste from his own lab after he’d been held hostage all those years ago, and he had a terrible suspicion that he knew exactly which one of the new Avengers was causing it here. 

“Hey. You. Minion.” He flagged down one of the ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who was now part of the initiative. The agent didn’t even look up from their tablet. They did, at least, stop and tilt their head in his direction. “Where are Rogers and the Super Friends?” He got a vaguely annoyed gesture in the direction of one of the training gyms before Agent Manners continued on their way.

The inside of the gym was organized chaos. Steve and Natasha were running Vision, Sam, Rhodey, and the surviving Maximoff through some sort of complex drill. Tony was smarter than anyone else on the team with the exception of maybe Bruce (missing or not, he was still on the team), but he was not a military mind. He wasn’t sure exactly what the purpose of the drill was. Even so, he could tell at a glance that there was one member of the team who was visibly struggling. The Scarlet Witch didn’t have a steady grasp on her powers. Whenever she tried to use her abilities to hold an item or even a teammate in the air she wobbled, forcing Sam to catch whatever she’d lost. She wasn’t especially agile as she moved through the obstacles around the room, either. While he watched she tripped, skidding across the floor until she crashed into one of the obstacles.

A piercing whistle echoed through the room, and the exercise ground to a halt. Vision lowered a hand to help Wanda to her feet, but she slapped it away. She struggled up on her own, her eyes glued to the floor as Steve and Natasha strode out to the middle of the floor. They both looked less than pleased with the results of their training, though Natasha stayed back a step to let Steve take point on the reprimand. 

“Wanda,” Steve began, “you’ve got to get your head in the game. Get your powers under control.” Wanda didn’t respond, but from his position by the door Tony could see her chin wobble. Red sparks danced between her fingertips and disappeared just as quickly. “Let’s run it again.”

“Cap,” Sam interrupted sounding exhausted, “we’ve run it twelve times in a row. Maybe we should table it for another day.”

Even Rhodey looked tired when his face plate flipped up. “Gotta agree with Sam on this one, Steve. Running it over and over isn’t helping.” The helmet retreated entirely. “Definition of insanity and all that.” Steve had the same face on that usually signalled a lecture was coming. 

“Couldn’t agree more!” Tony interrupted before Steve could speak. He strode across the floor to the group with his hands in his pockets. “Looks super boring. And I get the feeling you guys aren’t making the most of all the stellar entertainment I had put in.” He gestured over one shoulder. “You know there’s a theater room, right? Top of the line.”

“Tony,” Natasha acknowledged with a nod. She crossed her arms over her chest. Out of all the Avengers, Natasha knew more about dealing with Tony’s bullshit than anyone but Rhodey. “This is a surprise.”

He shrugged. “Not my team, not my methods, but I figured I’d come check in on my investment.” Rhodey caught his eye, and Tony gave him the tiniest of nods. The War Machine began to separate from his armor. 

“As you can see,” Steve assured him, “it’s going well.” He swept his arms wide. 

“Oh, yeah, it really looks like it.” Tony turned to the four trainees. “Why don’t you kids skedaddle for a bit and let me have a talk with Mom and Dad, here.”

Steve didn’t protest the dismissal, but he didn’t wait for them to get out of earshot before he voiced his opinions. “I thought you were done, Tony.”

“If I were completely done I wouldn’t still be building suits and alienating the only woman besides my mom that’s ever loved me.” He tilted his head to one side, staring Steve down. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Wanda shrug the rest of the group off and walk away with slumped shoulders. 

“Does that mean you’re going to be checking in now?” Natasha asked. She braced a hand against her hip, one eyebrow raised. “Make sure we’re on the straight and narrow?”

“Please. Like there’s any one of us that thinks I’m more by the book than Steve Rogers.” It was getting harder by the moment not to let his irritation at their training methods boil over into anger. Especially when he caught Rhodey and Sam yawning. “Gotta be honest, Cap, I’m not sure I’m a big fan of what I’m seeing here.”

“We’re training them to be heroes.”

“No, you’re training them like they don’t have feelings!” For a moment, Tony Stark stood like a beacon of righteous fury. In his peripheral, he saw Wilson give just the barest hint of a nod before he shuffled out into the hall, and Tony got the feeling that he wasn’t the only one to bring up this particular conversation. “Just how emotionally well adjusted do you two think you are, anyway?”

“Like you have any room to talk,” Steve growled in response.

Tony raised both of his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Oh, I don’t think I’m well adjusted in the slightest. The difference is that I freely admit that I have fucking problems instead of shoving them down under military schedules and training drills.” The two he’d put in charge bristled.

“Those training drills are the only thing that’s keeping Wanda from losing control and decimating half the surrounding county!” The tail end of Steve’s shout echoed in the gym, and Tony had a sinking feeling that the exact wrong person was close enough to take in every word.

“I said it to you years ago on Fury’s carrier and I’ll say it again: We. Are. Not. Soldiers.” Tony punctuated each word with an sharp clap of his hands. Steve took a deep breath, gearing up for another probably hurtful shout, and Tony rushed to cut him off. “I’m not saying she doesn’t need any training. Not at all.” He backed down ever so slightly, lowering his voice enough that only he, Steve, and Natasha could hear. “I just think you’re going about it the wrong way, and yelling loud enough for the whole facility to hear about how she’s one bad mood away from killing everyone definitely isn’t helping.” To his credit, Rogers winced. “I know what she’s feeling here, guys. I’ve seen it in the mirror. She doesn’t need a schedule. She needs freedom to work it through.”

Steve didn’t agree. It was written on his face as plain as day, but Natasha’s hand on his forearm halted any further protest. They had an entire conversation through a few glances and eyebrow wiggles before the Star Spangled Drill Sergeant finally seemed to relent. “Fine.” The word was practically a snarl. “But if her undisciplined power explosions tank New York it’s on your head.” He stomped off without waiting for a response.

“Good talk, Cap!” Tony called at his retreating back. “Looking forward to our next wholesome heart to heart!” He turned his back on Natasha before she could comment, spinning in a slow half circle as he looked over the space behind him. He spotted her in one of the nests along the walls that had been built with Barton in mind, curled up with her arms wrapped around her knees. He crossed the floor and stood a little ways from the wall with his hands in his pockets. “Hey! Red!”

Her head lifted from her knees, but she didn’t look directly at him. Watery eyes fixed on a spot of floor just over his left shoulder. There weren’t any tear tracks on her face, but something told Tony that was only because she’d cried so much as of late that she just didn’t have the tears to spare. It reassured him that he was one hundred percent right about this decision.

“Wanna come stay at the tower in New York for a while?” he asked, half shrugging one shoulder to make it as casual as possible. “Just you, me, and my robots? Get a little R&R?” 

Wanda was silent for a long moment, her eyes still unfocused and distant. She was quiet for so long that he started to wonder if she was going to turn him down. Finally, though, she gave the faintest nod. “Great. Good.” He wrenched his hands from his pockets and clapped them together. “Go pack a bag—don’t worry about toiletries or anything, just the stuff you want—and I’ll wait for you out front. Take your time and all that.” She nodded and started to fold herself out of the nest. “Chin up. Cap’s not right about everything.”


	2. Chapter 2

The last time Wanda had been at the Tower was right after Ultron, and to say that it had changed was a pretty gross understatement. First of all, she and Tony entered from street level. He drove straight into the garage beneath the building and led her to a private elevator keyed to him. On the long ride up to the floors reserved for the Avengers he introduced her to F.R.I.D.A.Y. and explained to her how security protocols worked. 

“F.R.I.D.A.Y. can recognize you by facial recognition or voice imprint depending on where you are and what the camera access is like,” he explained. “If you’re having trouble with anything you can always ask and she’ll give you a hand in any way she can.” Wanda nodded along and made mental notes as they rose toward the upper floors, her one bag held tight over her shoulder. She didn’t think she’s be doing a lot of travel outside of the Tower—especially after the way Steve had talked about the risk when her powers weren’t under control—but being able to ask a voice in the ceiling for help could be useful. The elevator opened on the communal area of the upper floors.

Ultron and the Iron Legion had destroyed most of the open communal floors, but in the time since that fiasco the space had been completely remodeled. She’d thought the trashed modern spaces she’d seen before seemed a bit impersonal, but without the glass shards all over the place and in the bright light of day it was actually quite homey. There were decorative pillows dotted over the furniture, knick-knacks that looked more sentimental than expensive scattered over the various surfaces, and even a worn knitted blanket draped over the back of one of the couches. Tony gave her a quick tour, sure to point out the digital media collections that could be accessed and the well-stocked kitchen that could be reached by passing through an archway beneath one of the staircases. He led her up past the blackened windows of his lab and into another elevator. 

“Before we made the decision to go upstate I put your suite in the plans for the floor under the penthouse,” he admitted when the elevator doors closed behind them. “Never did have anything else done with it. Take us to Red’s suite, F.R.I.D.A.Y.”

“Right away, boss.”

“This elevator only travels through the upper floors, so you never have to worry about anyone but another Avenger or Happy being on them. You probably won’t see him too often. I try to keep him busy elsewhere. No buttons. Just tell her where you want to go.”

“What about your girlfriend?” Wanda asked, memories of the strawberry blonde woman she’d seen in his mind flashing through hers. 

Tony squirmed. “She moved back to Malibu. Something about not wanting to watch me keep trying to get myself killed.” He shrugged as the doors opened and they stepped off into a small entryway. “Pep’s always been business minded. Guess she just recognized the best time to cut her losses.”

After a short explanation of how to set the door locks—something he insisted she should do on her own—he swung the door open and Wanda’s breath caught in her throat. Where the space downstairs was all high gloss and metal, the suite of rooms he’d set aside for her was warm woods, light walls, and rich colors. The living space was open with huge floor to ceiling windows against one side of the room. The couch and single armchair were huge, overstuffed, plush confections with pillows in every corner. She could see a small kitchenette with a bar that would seat two off to one side (“Not stocked, but give F.R.I.D.A.Y. a list and it’ll get delivered) and a short hall that lead to a bedroom and bathroom off to the other. The windows wrapped the entire space, thought Tony assured her that the AI could control the amount of light that was allowed through them at any point in time.

The most noticeable thing, though, was a small frame on the end table between the couch and chair. Wanda dropped her bag to the floor when she spotted it, walking across the room in a kind of trance. None of her things were in the room, so it stood out to see something of a personal touch. It floated up to her hand when she approached, hazy red smoke trailing behind though she hadn’t consciously reached out with her powers. It was the kind of swivel frame that opened like a book, a picture on each side. They were both of her and Pietro. On the left was a photograph she hadn’t seen in years. They were little more than children, arms slung around one another’s shoulders and carefree grins on their faces. The picture on the right was more recent—a shot of the two of them shortly before Strucker had his offer. They were older, and the smiles were no longer carefree, but there was still love there. She didn’t realize that Tony had come up alongside her until he spoke.

“We figured you didn’t have much in the way of pictures,” he told her quietly. “I called in a couple of favors to have somebody track those down.” He hesitantly reached a hand up to grip her shoulder, squeezing gently. She felt like she should be crying, but the tears just wouldn’t come. “We’re not always the best at showing it, Wanda.” Vaguely, she recognized that it might be the first time she’d heard him call her by name directly. “Always focusing on the mission makes it hard to remember to take a break and be human, but the Avengers are a family. For some of us we’re the only family we’ve got.”

 

~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Living in the Tower was so different than living at the upstate facility that it baffled her from time to time. Tony hadn’t been kidding when he’d told it would just be them and his robots. For the first week, she didn’t see another soul besides him, and she only saw him rarely. There was no rigorous training schedule to follow. Meal times weren’t regimented. There was no expectation that she eat with a group and be sociable. She wasn’t required to be anywhere or do anything. When she woke up her first morning F.R.I.D.A.Y. alerted her that Tony had left a box of things for her outside her door. It contained a Stark tablet, a Stark phone, an Avengers branded credit card with her name on it, and a red gift bag with gold tissue paper sticking out of the top. When she tugged the tissue paper out, she found herself smiling down at a pack of colored pencils and an ‘adult coloring book’ where all the pages were intricate designs of swear words.

For the first couple of days, she didn’t leave her suite for anything more than going down to get her grocery delivery. She colored a few pages in the book, read books on the tablet, and spent more hours than she cared to admit lying on her side facing the terrible numbness she’d grown so familiar with as of late. It would be easier if she could always cry, but sometimes it was like she wasn’t allowed to have that much feeling. She’d rather cry than be so numb, but that lack of feeling still swept over her like waves. In the darkness her nightmares would rattle the furniture.

By the end of the week she found herself missing the company of others, though she didn’t have the slightest desire to return upstate. Instead, she wandered down the elevator to the communal floors, slipping down the staircase outside the labs in bare feet and some of her most comfortable clothes. Unlike the day she’d moved in, the lab windows weren’t blacked out. She could see Tony inside having some sort of argument with a robot, his hair sticking up all over the place and a torch of some kind in one hand. A quick taste of his thoughts told her that it had been too long since he’d slept and for a moment something pierced through the numbness that had become her constant companion. For the first time since her brother died, she wanted to take care of someone. She found herself pushing her way through the door into the lab, loud music washing over her as she went. 

“I’m telling you, donation to a fifth grade science class in an arts focused school, DUM-E.” He was scolding the robot, which Wanda could now see was brandishing a can of WD-40 like some sort of weapon. “You keep testing me like this and I’m finally going to do it. Go stand in a corner or I’m going to make you wear the hat again.”

“Have you ever made something you don’t argue with?” Wanda asked as the robot rolled off to a corner, knocking a few tools from one of the work benches as it went. 

To his credit, Tony didn’t jump at the sound of her voice. The music abruptly cut off. “Now that you mention it, I don’t think I have.” He turned to face her, flicking off the torch before setting it aside. “Good to see you, Red. I was starting to think you were going to leave me all alone forever.”

“I can go if you prefer.”

“Nah.” He waved her off. “You’ve got to be better conversation than DUM-E. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

She shrugged. There were a million things she could have said, a million lies she could have told. Somehow, the truth still found its way out of her mouth. “I don’t much like my own company right now.”

Tony Stark, a man she’d once blamed for the deaths of her parents and the most harrowing hours of her own young life, didn’t give her judgement or pity or grief. Instead, he just nodded and waved away the holographic projections he’d had scattered all over his workspace. “I know exactly what you mean.” In just a few short moments he’d cleaned up his workstation and was steering her back into the common area. “Do you like Thai? Let’s order Thai and I’ll show you the magic of Kitchen Nightmares. You will not believe how much better you can feel about your own screwed up life when you’re watching Gordon Ramsey yell at people who should not be in the restaurant business.”


	3. Chapter 3

Getting used to having someone else in the Tower again was so easy that Tony never felt the transition. He’d brought her there and so she was there. He was never startled to find her in one of the communal spaces, and it never occurred to him to change any of his mannerisms for an unfamiliar housemate. The adjustment period came about for smaller things, things he didn’t realize he was adjusting until it was already too late. He tried not to dwell on those things, because when he did dwell—on the way the light glinted on her hair or the fit of a top she’d chosen or obscene amounts of cling in the yoga pants she favored as pajamas—he was uncomfortably aware that he’d sworn off such things when Pepper had come back after the Ultron incident just long enough to pack all her things. He wasn’t supposed to be thinking those kinds of things at all anymore, much less to be thinking them about Wanda.

So, he tried his best to ignore it. Ignoring it meant throwing himself into projects and isolating himself in the lab. It didn’t always work, though. To his utter confusion, Wanda wouldn’t let him retreat into himself. Thanks to her, they had developed something of a weekly ritual. Just when they’d both reached the breaking point of lacking positive social interaction, she’d barge into the lab and they’d end up vegging out in front of the tv. They’d both fallen asleep at some point during Kitchen Nightmares.  Hill had come in to pick up some new gear he’d developed for Wilson and found them that sprawled over two different couches with a mountain of takeout spread over the coffee table. The next week it had been ice cream, cheesy kung fu movies, and a very rude awakening when Thor thundered into town from whatever intergalactic vision quest he’d been on to pick up a belt he’d left behind. Wanda appeared more and more often between their binge watching sessions to chat with him in the lab or make some recipe he’d never heard of in the big communal kitchen that she’d insist he had to try. She made every effort to be present, but she was still so reserved.

And then, suddenly, she wasn’t anymore.

If he were being perfectly honest, he’d admit that he was always counting down the days to a freakout. Somewhere in hour six of the Kitchen Nightmares marathon, Wanda had admitted to him that she was largely overcome with a crushing kind of numbness. He remembered that feeling well. Numbness hadn’t overtaken him as much as the anger that his family’s legacy was horror and war, but it had been there for a time all the same. At some point it was bound to break, and he expected the break to be big and loud. It actually didn’t end up being all that loud, but it was definitely big to her.

Just a couple of days after they tore through several pizzas and fell asleep halfway through Beauty and the Beast, Wanda stormed around the communal area like a woman possessed. He watched through the lab’s windows as she paced, muttering to herself and occasionally flailing her arms about. Every few moments something would levitate off one of the tables or shelves, but she always caught herself, turning and directing the objects back to their places with control Cap had sworn just weeks ago that she didn’t have. It went on for about ten minutes before he set down the project he was working on and ambled out to the catwalk overlooking the living area.

“You alright down there?” he called. In response, she hurled a flurry of Sokovian in his direction that couldn’t have been anything but curse words. “And just what would Cap have to say about such language?”

“Fuck the Captain,” she snarled.

He tried to think if there’d been anything in the news about the Avengers lately, but he was coming up blank. “Did he call you or something? I could go back up there and have a chat with him.”

“He did nothing.”

That made him grin, and he started down the steps toward her. “You have no idea how much of a relief it is to know that I’m not the only one who gets mad at Cap for no reason.” He knew that wasn’t it, and he knew it was maybe a bit mean to bait her, but he liked seeing the spark behind her eyes with the rage.

“I am not angry with him.” Her pacing was growing more frantic, bring her closer to the stairs he was descending.

“Who are you angry with, then?” Tony asked when his feet hit the floor.

“I am angry with me!” Wanda screeched, whirling about and stomping so close that she nearly stood on his toes. “Because it is my fault!” Angry tears spilled over her cheeks. “I reached into your mind and gave you visions that fed on your paranoia. I gave you the drive you needed for Ultron. _I_ did that.” The fight went out of her all at once and she fell against his chest, sobbing. “Pietro died because of me.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” He folded his arms around her and shushed her gently, swaying them back and forth for a few moments. “They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, Red,” Tony mused, smoothing a hand over her hair as she clung to him. “I know that better than most. The thing they don’t tell you is that we all build our own roads without ever knowing where they’re going. The end result could always be bad or always be good. We don’t get to know that. The only part of that we get to choose is how we pave those roads.” He held her tighter, thinking of his own many failings. “The intentions are the part that makes the difference. You and your brother had the very best of intentions. You wanted to protect your home.”

Wanda shook her head, hiccuping. “We did not have good intentions, Tony.” She wouldn’t look at him, her face buried in his shirt. “We volunteered for Strucker’s experiments because we wanted to be able to fight you. To hunt you down and make you pay for what your company took from us. We wanted vengeance.”

“Alright,” he conceded. “Sure, you didn’t start with good intentions. But at the very first choice between your vengeance and saving innocent lives you didn’t hesitate to switch sides. That makes the difference, Wanda. Sometimes our grand ideas rip reality apart, but our determination to fix every fuck-up—to repave that road with something better—is what makes us good people.” Stroking one hand up and down her spine, he laid his cheek against her hair. “Our fear is what makes our mistakes. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and all that.”

“I don’t think I know that quote,” she sniffed after a long moment.

Tony leaned back just enough to look see her face, disbelief in his eyes. “You’re kidding, right?” When she gave him a blank stare through bleary eyes he scoffed. “Star Wars?”

“I’ve never seen it.”

“I’m not sure I can come up with a valid excuse for this,” he insisted, dialing the drama up to eleven. “How have you never seen Star Wars? Is this an age gap thing?”

Wanda couldn’t resist the opportunity to pick on him just a bit. “You are almost twenty years older than me.”

“Don’t make it weird.” Absently, Tony pressed a kiss to her temple, stunning her into silence. “Come on. You pick the takeout. We’ve got to further your movie education.”

 

~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Wanda let herself be led to the couch while Tony chatted about popcorn and soda and pillows. Her heart was sore. Her eyes burned from the tears, and she was having a bit of trouble getting her breathing to even out, but it felt so good just to _feel_ for a change. Plus, there were lovely little tingles radiating out from where his lips had touched the skin of her temple. Their routine was already well ingrained. While he puttered about pulling extra blankets and cushions from hiding spaces she hadn’t realized were there she ordered dinner. Everywhere that delivered to the Tower always made delivery to the upper floors a priority because Tony was notoriously generous with his tips. By the time he finished with what he considered the necessary prep the food had arrived. Tony laid out their feast’s worth of Chinese food on the coffee table while F.R.I.D.A.Y. cued up the movies (chronological order, not release order—whatever that meant).

And then, instead of taking his usual spot on one of the other couches he settled himself right beside her. She was really too tired to focus much on the movie, but Tony didn’t seem to mind. He gave her the spark notes version of events in real time so that she only had to pay attention to the spectacle and enjoy her dinner. The last thing she remembered was him explaining something about an underwater city full of weird frog creatures before she drifted off to sleep.

When she next woke there were credits rolling on the screen. The sky outside was as dark as the bright lights of New York would allow. She’d fallen back against the armrest as she slept, her legs stretched out across the cushions. She was extremely warm, and her left leg had the tell tale pins and needles feeling of hindered circulation. The fuzzy blue blanket she’d grabbed when the sun began to set and the room lost its warmth was bunched around her waist, a bit of it gripped tight in Tony’s fist.

Tony Stark was sleeping on her chest.

It didn’t look like he’d laid down there on purpose— had more likely gravitated to her body heat in his sleep. Most of his weight lay on her left hip and thigh, the cause of the pins and needles. His head was pillowed on her ribs, his face tucked down toward her stomach. He was snoring very faintly, and she could feel the vibrations of each snore. She didn’t mean to do it. It could have been the shock of finding him there when she woke or even that she was so very comfortable. She slipped into his mind as easily as she might slip into a warm bath.

He was dreaming about her. The dream was nothing concrete, more a writhing mass of feeling, but she could see her own face at its center as clearly as if she were looking in a mirror. Here there was a flash of her standing in front of one of the massive picture windows, sunlight in her hair and her tablet in her hands. There she was at the stove of the communal kitchen, humming while she stirred a pot of paprikash and shook her hips in time with the radio. In another she sat on a disused counter in the lab, smart mouth teasing him for some thing or other. With every flash of her own face she felt a rush of emotion.

Warmth and friendship she expected. Perhaps even a bit of attachment. She was not prepared for longing. Shaking, she pushed herself from his mind. Her heart was pounding. Her hand hovered and briefly hesitated, itching to brush over the wayward spikes of his hair but still unsure of her welcome. What she’d just seen played through her mind again, and the hesitation faded.

He jerked and started to wake almost instantly, pushing up and into her hand like a cat begging to be petted. Wanda ran her nails gently over his scalp, trailing down to the nape of his neck and back up to the crown of his head. He twisted beneath her hand, his whole body shifting closer. When he finally turned his face to look up at her, his expression was that of naked want. He blinked at the sight of her face once and then again before he seemed to realize he wasn’t still asleep.

“Oh, shit, Wanda, I’m sorry!” His words rushed out on a single breath, as he moved to push up and away from her. She tightened the hand in his hair into a fist, and he froze. His eyes found hers again in the dim room, questions piling up in his gaze.

“Did you know,” Wanda began mildly, “that you are a very loud dreamer?” She loosened her fist and resumed running her fingers through his hair. “I think your dream may have been what woke me.”

He was many things, but Tony was not slow to understand social cues. “And here you are having seen my dreams and not running away.”

“Why would I run? We have similar thoughts.”

“Red, don’t tease.” His eyes practically glittered as he smoldered at her. He shifted, dragging his body over hers until he hovered above her, propped up on his hands. “I’m not exactly known for impulse control and I’ve been at this way too long for games.”

In response, Wanda gripped his hair once more and dragged his face down to her own. However she chose to describe her feelings in the days that followed, ‘numb’ was not even in the vocabulary.


End file.
